Sonlight Core A - Week 24 Day 5

Since there are no extra activities provided for the Under the Sea book assigned to be read on day 5, if possible, I come up with an arts and craft for the boys to do (related to whatever they are learning).  Today, we read about jellyfish (and flatfish but I couldn't find anything to do for that) so we made some jellyfish.

Ditto is always looking to see how brother does things (although, at least this time he chose a different color)

I love the his face when he is concentrating!

 

Munchkin refused to smile in the picture because he said jellyfish don't smile...such my serious child.

Update 6/1/2013: They are still playing with these everyday. They love to run around and make the legs wave behind them.  Fun project!

Sonlight Core A - Week 24 Day 4

Science: 

Munchkin is always so sweet about letting Ditto help with his science work.

All of the projects are ready to be observed (the cucumber has actually already started expressing water).

Sonlight K - Week 10

This week was pretty fun but we had to work some this weekend because a lot of things came up this week (doctor and dentist appointments, surprise trip to Disneyland, fun time with Grandma).  Here are the highlights from our week:

Language:
Munchkin worked on sentence length.  

Here he changed a short sentence (Sam ran.) into a longer sentence (Sam ran fast at the race!)

We discussed how adding descriptive terms to sentences help the reader envision the story better.  After lengthening some sentences and shortening others, Munchkin decided that when he grows up he wants to be a Dad, Author, Illustrator, Knight.  Very cute!

I also gave him a group of words and asked him to sort them into like categories. I thought I might need to help him through this one but he did it all by himself.  I was very impressed!

left to right: body parts, food, animals, men, etc.

History:
We discussed the first explorers and I Munchkin worked on this worksheet while I read.

Munchkin loved this and asked if he could have more of these!

We also discussed how explorers navigated using homemade compasses.  In order to see what it was like, we made our own homemade compass.

we confirmed our experiment by comparing our findings to my husband's phone

Meanwhile, I took this picture of what Ditto worked on one day while Munchkin and I were having school.  I thought it was so cool that he was making such a cute effort to write letters.

Because of this, and after discussing it with a very eager Ditto, I've decided to start Letter of the Week (based on books) activities this Monday.  We're all excited!

Math:
We continued to work on our double facts as well as adding one number facts and adding zero number facts.  Munchkin understands all of these concepts perfectly.

On Friday, he tried to figure out how many different ways he could make the same shape with a different pattern?  This was just the perfect amount of challenge. 

Art:
We finally finished up our Preview Lesson of Meet the Masters.  Dad worked with Munchkin on making his portfolio.   

not part of the preview- a quick lesson on color mixing

On the front is a palette with all of the artists we will be studying this year (including Munchkin's name) and he decided he wanted to paint this picture on the back (a knight on a horse with a knife and a castle in the distance)

Science:
This week we learned about "living things" and cells...
To help cement the information in Munchkin's brain, we made edible cells...

animal cell

plant cell

And watched Magic School Bus Goes Cellular. Not the best video but the boys enjoyed it.

Another day we discussed the "animal world".  I decided to take a different route with this and first discuss vertebrate vs. invertebrate.  We did the activity below to make sure he understood the difference...

Then we watched this video...twice. Great video!

Sonlight K - Week 9

This week we started having chores for both of the boys.  Munchkin has had a chore for a while now (clearing the silverware out of the dishwasher) but this weekend, it was decided that Ditto would also begin to help around the house.

So now, Ditto clears the silverware...

and Munchkin wipes off the guest bathroom counter daily and sweeps the front walkway regularly.  Since we have been discussing "service" this week in our family scripture study, this was a great way to put it into action - serving our families.

Math
Among other things, we used linking cubes to measure the length and width of our office desk...

 Munchkin enjoyed this so much that he wanted to measure our kitchen table...

 We ran out of linking cubes (we only have 100)...

...but we just determined that our table was more than 100 linking cubes long and 56 linking cubes wide.

Although I feel pretty confident in Munchkin having learned his double facts (1+1, 2+2, etc.) I wanted to do one more "fun" activity to cement his understanding and confirm my confidence.  So, this week I read Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong.  The boys LOVED this book! They requested I re-read it multiple times (at lunch, before naps, at dinner). To make it an active reading, I had Ditto count the pictures and I had Munchkin figure out the doubles.  We also read Double the Ducks by Stuart J. Murphy. I had the boys do the same thing (Ditto - count, Munchkin - double) and then Munchkin completed a few pages from this Double the Ducks Activity Pack.

We also continued working on graphing and graphed a handful of a pattern blocks a few times...

Science
We have been discussing a great deal about our planet this week. To enhance the reading assigned by Sonlight, we read some very enjoyable books.

On Monday, after reading about the destruction of the rainforest, we read The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. After reading about pollution we read The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute Anymore. And after we read about the extinction of animals, we read The Hunter and the Animals by Tomie dePaola.  Munchkin really enjoyed each of these books and even though it was a lot of reading it provided a great opportunity for further discussion and understanding of each of these subjects. 

On Tuesday, after reading about global warming (Sonlight assignment), we made these fun earth crafts.

the original idea came from To The Lesson

Munchkin's

Ditto's

They really enjoyed these and worked on them for a very long time.  

On Wednesday, we read about ways we can help our planet and afterward we made a bird-feeder.  

Language
This week, I decided to start Munchkin on writing in a journal. I want him to develop a real love for writing and even though he practices his handwriting daily, I feel free-writing in a journal will allow him to practice without even knowing it.

 After his reading work, we worked on defining the word cab...

...this process really cemented the meaning in his mind (we have read more stories with this word in it as the week went on and he still remembers).

Spelling.
Munchkin has been doing extremely well in spelling. He hasn't misspelled any words yet (granted he is still spelling phonetically spelled words and sometimes writes his letters incorrectly) but this week he advanced to my dictating phrases to him and him spelling them...

...he did well (this provides a great opportunity to work on handwriting and word spacing).

That sums it up for our week!

Sonlight K - Week 5 Day 3

This week we "rowed" Storm in the Night.  Both boys (and myself)  really enjoyed this book. Today we spent a great deal of the day doing Storm in the Night activities.

In order to cement his learning on onomatopoeia, we made this craft (on each raindrop I had him think up a descriptive word for weather sounds)

There is a part in this book where the Grandfather describes a man...I had Munchkin draw, based on the Grandfather's description, a picture of what he thought the man looked like.

He also learned about italics and their purpose and we went on a italics hunt throughout the book...I then read the sentence so he could hear the affect italics have when being read.

 He then wrote this story to try his hand at using italics...

The Viking Ship

Once upon a time there were six Vikings on a Viking ship. They wanted to go catch a people. And one said to another, "Which landmark should we go to? Should we go left or right?"

And the other pirate said to that one, "I think we should go to the left."

And the other pirate said, "I think that's a great idea!"

So they went left and they all went out of the ship onto the landmark. The chief said, "We should look for food and bury our treasure."

And then they hopped out of the ship and buried the treasure. But then one big army Roman soldier came. And the Vikings were dead. And the Roman Army took the ship from the Vikings.

And they lived happily ever after.

 THE END

He loves writing stories!

For art, he tried using sharp chalk on dark blue paper to make raindrops like in the book

 

For science, we learned about deserts...

We watched a very interested and short video about fennec foxes...

...and then for a special treat the boys watched a Magic School Bus episode about the desert ...while eating popcorn...on the couch!

Great day!

Sonlight K - Science Sunday

In order to get caught up on a few science experiments (and for Dad's help) we got caught up on our Science work this weekend.  We started by making a volcano with Dad...

Of course Munchkin wanted to add a vent to his volcano...

close-up of vent

the finished product...time to set outside to dry.

In the meantime we started our next experiment...observing the components of our soil...

Munchkin really liked shaking up the jar.

Jar being set out to begin the separation process...

While we wait for the volcano to dry and the soil to separate, we begin our third science experiment...observing leaf litter.

In the meantime...our soil begins to separate.

examining our leaf litter...

we were both hoping to find something living in our leaf litter...

...no such luck! Nevertheless, it was interesting.

Munchkin then spent a little time recording our experiments in his science journal

the next day, our soil had completed the separation process and showed just what makes our tomatoes, peaches, tangerines, green beans, and hopefully apples (in a year or two) taste so good...sand (the bottom layer is mostly sand)!

 In the evening, after our volcano had dried, the boys got to take turns making it erupt...

the boys loved this so much...they wanted to do MORE...out came the baking soda

the final hurrah.

 

happy boys!